


Starting Over

by morning_coffee



Category: Shades of Blue (TV)
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 15:30:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16066031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morning_coffee/pseuds/morning_coffee
Summary: Woz asking for favors never led to anything good for as long as Harlee's known him. It's always something illegal, immoral or dangerous. All three, more often than not.





	Starting Over

**Author's Note:**

  * For [exchequered (kesterstjohn)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kesterstjohn/gifts).



"I need your help," Woz says – and God knows this should be reason enough to slam the door shut again. Woz asking for favors never led to anything good for as long as she's known him. It's always something illegal, immoral or dangerous. All three, more often than not.

Harlee's hand tightens on the door handle, but instead of telling him to get lost, she steps aside and motions for him to enter. He walks inside with effortless confidence, like he never expected any different. The new place doesn't really feel like home to her yet, but Woz... he looks right at home.

"You know I don't have a badge anymore, right?"

The grin Woz levels at her takes years off his age, mischief sparkling in his blue eyes. "And that's exactly why I'm askin'."

Of course it is.

She doesn't owe Woz anything. He and Linda took care of Cristina while Harlee was inside, and Harlee will never forget that. But the scales had been hopeless tipped in Woz' favor before, Harlee keeping all of his horrible secrets, showing all the world the blood on her own hands so Woz' hands would seem clean. Verco once asked her how she could justify it, taking the fall when they both knew Woz deserved to be behind bars more than her. Harlee told him it was about saving herself, that she could only take responsibility for her own conscience and not anyone else's. The truth is, it was only ever about love, and trading her freedom for Woz' was not something she considered.

Maybe they're even now or maybe they're not, but does it really matter? It was never _obligation_ that made her follow Woz.

She musters up some token protest, more performative than anything. "I'm out, Woz. I don't do this anymore. That was the whole point of taking the plea deal, wasn't it?"

Woz makes a dismissive sound. She doesn't need to see his sour face to know he never thought much of her need for penance. He's an old dog too stubborn to learn new tricks; the longing for a clean slate is foreign to him. 

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Spare me the 'washed clean of my sins' nonsense. That creep Stahl got to your head, that's what happened. All that bullshit about wanting to save you. You didn't need to be saved, you were fine exactly the way you were." 

He opens the cupboard and takes out a bottle of whiskey. His 'welcome home' gift to her. In the six weeks since she's been out, the contents of the bottle have shrunk to less than a third their size, but it's mostly been Woz' work, not hers. He pours a glass and glares at the clear amber liquid like it's single-handedly responsible for everything wrong in the world before he downs it.

Harlee sighs. "Woz —" 

It's a stale old argument they've been rehashing since she accepted the D.A.'s deal, and Woz brought it up every time he visited her in prison. It was easy enough to shrug it off at the beginning, when she was still riding the high of doing the right thing. Before being isolated from everyone she cared about and locked up with people who wanted her dead started wearing her down. Before she started thinking that even after everything she'd done, she was _better_ than those people. And Woz had recognized those doubts, that bitterness in her. He'd fed them, the way he always fed her worst instincts.

"Doesn't matter now," he say. "Whatever you had to prove to that bastard or yourself, you did it. It's done."

Easy to magnanimously dismiss the squabble when he's already won. 

When Woz holds out a glass of whiskey for her, Harlee takes it. The burn makes her throat ache, a rush of warmth following its wake. Almost like working with Woz, she can't help thinking, like being part of his crew: pain and then warmth, a fair trade-off. All the doubts and the self-loathing and the sacrifice of morals and innocence were ultimately worth it because the crew was a family, a safety net, a safe haven in the middle of a raging storm. 

And she misses it. Has been missing it, for far too long. She's tired of missing it, of waiting for this new life of hers to finally snap into place, for the sacrifices she made to pay off and that peace of mind she'd been chasing to fill the holes losing her badge and the crew left. 

She drinks up and puts the glass on the counter with too much force.

"You're right. It's done." The frown on Woz' face makes her realize that the words are ambiguous and that he thinks she means she's done with him, with this. And maybe she should be, but _should_ never got her anything in her life. "What do you need?"

His lips stretch into a slow smile, more proud than satisfied, and she feels the echoing warmth in her chest, spreading slowly like the whiskey's aftertaste. "That's my girl."

End.


End file.
